I’m always inspired and motivated after listening to Voices of VR podcasts. Kent is extremely intellectual (be prepared to look up new words in your dictionary) and very connected to the VR industry. His focus on non-gaming aspects of the technology is especially refreshing. Episode #937 was a discussion with Darshan Shankar and focused on the announcement by Facebook that use of the Oculus hardware will require and be tied to a Facebook login.

So… I have a number of takeaways about this conversation!

1. Anyone trying to control the metaverse is missing the point. I agree with this, with a caveat. For any given cause or topic there are some that care about it and some that don’t. AOL was highly successful before the Internet, some saw it as a walled garden, limiting expression etc. some just used it to talk with their friends and didn’t really care. Same seems to be true of Facebook, some people won’t see or won’t care that Facebook is owning everything. Really I’m looking for a way that the majority that don’t care about who controls the metaverse don’t trample the rights of the minority who care deeply about it.
2. Facebook is greedy. There are a number of proven business models, one is take a cut (30% in the latest walled garden app store model) and support by advertising. Facebook seems to want to double dip, 30% right off the top and sell ads. This seem reminiscent of the cable industry which started as a flat fee with no commercials, and then decided once they had control they would sell ads too! This is a result of lack of competition and can only be avoided by supporting competition. Sometimes free market economies need a nudge to be fair and just, this may be a good example of that.
3. There are bound to be problems when one company owns the hardware, the software to run that hardware, and the content for that hardware. The history of personal computing warns of this, but also provides a solution with open hardware and software. The VR headset hardware business should be able to survive on it’s own. That will mean higher upfront cost for headsets. Like the PC industry, a standardized hardware standard will allow multiple companies to compete on the hardware front and drive prices down. The software to drive those devices needs to be open and separate for privacy and security reasons (Linux as an example from the PC industry) and finally content needs to be available outside of the censorship of a walled garden and be provided by independent content providers.
4. Don’t ask the sky to not be blue. One thing I’ve noticed over the years is Kent tries to be an open journalist. I cringe when this comes out with statements like “maybe we just need to hear Facebook’s side of this” No Kent, Facebook is a company that sells their user’s eyeballs, this isn’t going to change. What could they do if they really wanted to change? Implement separation like #3 above

In general this whole discussion is fairly depressing, and doesn’t bode well for a vibrant VR ecosystem. VR is an incredible technology, but faces a lot of hurdles to become well accepted. It seems the industry as a whole is making all the same mistakes that have been made in the PC and Internet industry over the years. These problems begin with the inventors (imagine the world where Oculus did not sell out to Facebook) the creators (stop selling your content on only one platform!) and the consumers (don’t buy a headset that is clearly subsidized by selling ads). As consumers we have a primary voice, our purchasing decision. I’m committed to spend my dollars on any headset other than Oculus, and I’m focused on providing my content outside of the limiting and controlling walls of the Oculus app store.